A dense little poem, a complex network of sounds and associations. The echoes--across the peaks of the poem--of Ashbery in line 4 and Eliot in the penultimate line remind me a little of a Ted Berrigan sonnet. Lao-Tree seems to be a forestry project grafted onto the father of Taoism--and I have an inkling that the Chineseness of the latter relates to "chinking." And of course that "ink" sound tintinnabulates again in "tinkling." The ending stunned me--put me in mind of Baudelaire's "Albatross." It suggests that a poet keeps aloof from life because he can't function in it ("I have no water wings")and because he fears that life will show him the truth about himself ("fear death by drowning in a mirror image"). In solitude he's free to imagine himself anything he likes. I hope my take on your poem isn't too idiosyncratic! I'm just trying to say that it repays close reading, that I like it.

As is the way with any insightful objective "outside reading" of a poem, this one of yours (for which by the way I am extremely grateful!) reveals to me aspects of what I'm doing that I had not fully cognized. And maybe a good thing at that. The mirror reflections, whether or not flattering (and hopefully for the honesty of any writer, mostly they are the latter), are most informative in passing, I find, but getting too close can be dangerous.

Incidentally the lake where the poem was written was fairly shallow. But I suppose one can drown in two feet of water. As it happens not long ago I saw someone come very close to drowning, and later discussed the experience with others, including some equally shaken fellow witnesses. Some in the discussion who had not been present opined that it would be a good way to go--quick at least. Those of us who'd been there tended to disagree. To each his own ending...

Kind words from a discriminating reader, many thanks. Yes, Schwimmflügeln -- a linguistic aquatic giggle that made my day as well. (Pondered a bit on the motives of that photo-poster, but oh well, gift horse..or should I say seahorse?)

That was an odd stroke of luck. There were meant to be three empty spaces before "Goodbye", but I'd forgotten Blogger imposes a one-format-fits-all/no eccentricities rule when it comes to spacing. (Well, half-forgotten, half tossed fate to the winds.) (No mute inglorious Olsons here.) Anyway, as usual the enforced abdication of eccentric spacing proved an undeserved benison.

Some farewells are admittedly terrible, but that goodbye to the last poem/book seems relatively easy, given as I say there's usually soon a next one, which reminds me, congratulations on your new book!

I suppose my favourite "goodbye line" is that uttered not by a poet but by Czar Nicholas, an instant before his execution by the Bolshies, at Ekaterinburg, July 16, 1918:

"What?"

But all I can say, almost finally, Bill, is Atque, in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.